US website regrets 'confusion' over Sonia Gandhi's name in richest list

Dec 03, 2013, 15:56 IST
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Agencies

An American news website has regretted the "confusion" caused by the inclusion of the name of Congress president Sonia Gandhi from the list of richest leaders of the world and deleted it.

The removal of the name occurred shortly after the Congress derided the website for the "absurd and ridiculous" item.

"Our editors have been unable to verify the amount, removed the link, and regret any confusion," the Huffington post said, four days after it listed Gandhi as the 12th richest world leader putting her asset to USD 2 billion.

"Sonia Gandhi and the former emir of Qatar Hamid bin Khalifa al-Thani have been removed from this list," the editor of Huffington Post wrote on its website last evening after the list of the world's richest leader was updated.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi. File pic

"Gandhi was originally included based on a listing on a third party site which was subsequently called into question," said the editor without giving name of the third-party site.

The Congress Party had questioned the authenticity of such a figure by Huffington Post. "If Huffington Post would stick to huffing puffing, then I think they would do a much better job for themselves. Because If you do put out these absurd and ridiculous things out in print, then you only open yourself to be made a laughing stock. I would not even like to dignify with a response," Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari yesterday said in New Delhi after the list was released.

While putting Gandhi's wealth at USD 2 billion, Huffington Post had not given details of how it arrived at such a figure.